Devices that deliver irrigating fluid to an irrigation site are necessary in a variety of medical and dental procedures. For example, laparoscopic, arthroscopic and hysteroscopic procedures require sufficient volumes of irrigation fluid to be delivered to the surgical site in order to maintain tamponade, isolate bleeders and to generally clear the surgical area. Laparoscopic procedures involve incisions to the abdominal cavity and include appendectomies, cholecystectcomy (incision of the gall bladder) and treatment of ectopic pregnancies. Hysteroscopic procedures involve inspection of the uterine cavity and include procedures that remove abnormal tissue from the uterus such as a biopsy or a myomectomy. Arthroscopic procedures are typically performed by an orthopedic surgeon and involve irrigation, distension and inspection of the joints such as at the knee, shoulder, elbow or ankle. Such arthroscopic procedures include synovectomy, meniscectomy or repair of the anterior cruciate ligament.
During these various medical procedures, it is generally useful for the surgeon to keep tissue that surrounds the surgical site out of the way by injecting solutions such as saline, glycine or lactated ringer's solution into the subject area. As each procedure different volumes of fluid delivered at various pressures, it would be useful for health care providers to have a single pump that could be adapted to deliver the appropriate irrigation for various procedures.
Another important aspect of medical irrigation pumps is sterility. Fluid that enters the body during a surgical procedure must be maintained sterile. However, efforts to maintain sterility become complicated when expensive hardware, such a s a pump, is used. Sterility is more easily and assuredly maintained when medical devices that carry irrigant fluid to the body can be discarded after each use. It is possible to provide a medics irrigation pump that utilizes a permanent non-sterile pump motor that can generate pumping action in a sterile fluid pathway that is disposable and detachable from the permanent motor hardware.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,927,955 (Spinosa et al.) discloses a medical cassette pump that utilizes peristaltic pumping action to pump fluid through a sterilized fluid path. The pump consists of a non-sterile permanent electric motor that rotates planetary rollers. The rollers engage the exterior surface of flexible sterilized tubing that is maintained around the circular outer edge of a disposable cassette. As the rollers compress the tubing against the edge of the cassette, fluid pumping action is provided. The cassette and tubing are removable from the rollers and motor and may be discarded and replaced with a now sterile cassette and tube for each use.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,621 (Atkinson) discloses a lavage pump system that utilize s a permanent electric motor that engages a sterile disposable pumping unit. A linear reciprocating electric motor releasably engages the end of a piston rod that is part of the piston/cylinder disposable pump. The replaceable sterile lavage pump slides into a compartment that is adjacent the electric motor so that the motor and piston rod can be maintained in a working relationship. It would be highly desirable to provide a medical pump that could drive a wide variety of sterile replaceable pumping mechanisms to serve the many medical procedures that health care providers must perform,